Sunday October 17 started cloudy in Monopoli. We caught the 10:51 train to Ostuni for a day trip. It is a fast 20 minutes with two brief stops. No one checked for tickets, which are only 2.60 euros one way (5.20 return)! We passed thousands of olive trees on the way.
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10 minute walk to train station in Monopoli, through Piazza Vittorio Emanuele
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| Train going other direction from Monopoli |
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| Signage in train--- everyone was masked |
The Ostuni train station is a bit out of town but there is a shuttle bus timed to train arrivals that takes visitors close to the main square. A bit of a hair-raising 10 minute ride as the small shuttle was quite full and the driver's brakes were squealing. As we arrived in town, there was a brief misty rain, that cleared after about 10 minutes. The rest of the day was a mix of sun and cloud with a high of 18C.
Ostuni is known as the White City because of its whitewashed buildings. Historically, the buildings were painted white with lime during the Plague, where it worked as an effective disinfectant. Ostuni has a population of about 32,000 during the winter, but can grow to 100,000 during the summer. The region is a producer of high quality olive oil and wine. The name Ostuni is derived from the Greek
Astu néon ("new town").
The shuttle bus dropped us close to Piazza della Libertà, Ostuni's main square. The column of Sant' Oronzo, the patron saint of the town, is located in the Piazza.
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| The Ostuni Town Hall, in the former Franciscan Convent |
Chiesa di San Francesco d'Assisi is located adjacent to the Town Hall. The church was founded in 1304, but has undergone significant changes over the centuries. It was incorporated into the former convent in 1883, which later became the Town Hall.
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| Facade in rococo style |
We passed a museum that was having an exhibit of the art of Shepard Fairey, the artist behind the famous Obama
Hope poster. We took a pass. How this exhibit found its way to Ostuni would be interesting though.
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| Poster for the exhibit |
We walked up a very crowed street called Via Cattedrale to reach the Cattedrale di Santa Maria Asssunta. The Cathedral dates back to the 15th century. Its facade is a beautiful example of Romanesque and Gothic architecture. It boasts, with its 24 spikes, the largest rose window in Italy.
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| Cathedral |
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| Baroque Arco Scoppa on the way to the Cathedral |
We continued to climb and found a number of places where we could see the Sea and the olive groves.
There were some well photographed doors on our climb.
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| Door One |
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| Door two |
We tried to get away from the heavily touristed areas and were largely successful.
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| Very peaceful area of Ostuni |
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| Archways |
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| A lovely area with plants galore |
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| Another viewing spot |
Chiesa di Santa Maria della Stella was very near the City Walls. It was erected on a pre-existing 16th century chapel. It was rebuilt again during the first quarter of the 19th century with its modern and sombre architecture.
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| Definitely austere |
We saw a number of old Covid warning signs from August 2020 on the City Walls. Italy was very hard hit by Covid in 2020.
Walking on the City Walls was lovely--- beautiful buildings on one side and views of the countryside with olive trees and the sea in the distance on the other side. Ostuni is 8 km from the coast.
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| Favourite part of our walk in Ost |
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| The walls of the White City |
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| View from the City Walls-- Adriatic Sea in the distance- lots of olive groves |
We took a look inside Chiesa di San Giuseppe (XIII century).
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| Inside of the Church |
We then passed a very cool installation by Bernardo Palazzo, an Italian designer and artist entitled I Gairdini Della Grata that was installed from August - October, 2021.
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| Very cool installation |
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| Detail |
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| View of the Cathedral |
We decided to have a late lunch on the patio of Tito Schipa, near the Piazza Libertà.
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| Bar inside |
We both had
orecchiette con cime di rapa e tarallo sbriciolato al sentore di alici (orecchiette with turnip greens and crumbled tarallo with anchovies fragrance), a Pugliese specialty.
We decided to head back to Monopoli a bit earlier than planned as it was cooling off and we had seen quite a bit of the town. We managed to catch a shuttle bus and then hopped on the 4:07 p.m. train. Again, no one checked tickets. We were back in Monopoli by 4:28 p.m. We were glad we had visited Ostuni, but were equally glad that we had used Monopoli as our base. Ostuni had lots of tourists even in October and the road to the Cathedral was filled with mainly tourist shops.
We decided to visit the Monopoli harbour one last time and found a small crowd of people listening to music and celebrating the fishing boats.
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| Music at the harbour |
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| The wonderful "gozzo" blue fishing boats |
There was a poster for "Gozzovigliando 2.0" setting out events happening at the harbour on Saturdays and Sundays in October. Gozzo is the name of the small fishing boats and I translated vigliando to mean "watching". We also saw a sign that there had earlier been free short tours on the fishing boats, but that activity was over by the time we got there.
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| Poster with events |
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| Harbour view (where we were yesterday) |
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| Alonzo in Piazza Garibaldi with an Oar promoting the events |
We headed back to the apartment to pack and have a light dinner. On Monday, we head to Martina Franca for three nights. The town is not accessible by train from Monopoli, so we will be taking a short hour-long bus ride to get there. Another adventure awaits.
We have enjoyed our stay in Monopoli, a wonderful fishing village, much less touristic than Ostuni. I just read that Monopoli, which has been inhabited since 500 B.C. takes its name from the early Greek city that was founded there. "Monos Polis" means singularly unique. We agree.
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